I Hope No One Calls When You Die

Your name is still in my phone.

Sometimes, I glimpse it among the list of old college friends like a dandelion trying to hide within a field of daisies. It’s not exactly right, but at the same time, isn’t it? Better chances I’ll call up someone from my dwindled writing group than you.

Undear, you stained my life so obnoxiously with half-truths and selfish underpinnings. Yet, you once carried me across the beach when my feet burned on sun-loved sand. All said and done, your kindness and ego zeroed out. Now, you're just a name, belonging only between two guys who drunkenly argued whether my story was either the best or worst thing they'd ever read.

Somewhere in my dad’s garage is a box full of our secrets. I asked him to toss it, but he’s oddly sentimental. So, it’s either gathering dust or he learned much more about us than he ever wanted. I cringe at the memory — hunched over, pouring into a pile of letters and keepsakes, realizing it was all fake because I wanted to celebrate life and you, “didn’t really like that kind of stuff anyway.”

“What if your next … you know, whoever down the line dies, and you’re lonely? Will you ever talk to him again?” an awkward man, who doesn’t understand the difference between should and can, once asked me. I like to imagine you were the voice of chaos sitting on his shoulder then.

You don’t know, but I had to change my number because you wouldn’t leave me alone. Chances are, I’d rather live in a yurt on the edge of human habitance than entertain you again. Although familiarity can feel like finally resting after a strenuous day, it isn’t always right. I’ve learned not to mistake our codependency for meant to be. At night, if my mind wanders and I start worrying about your happiness, I just stop. It’s that easy.

All said and done, your sister admitted that she wished she had been there for me more often. It made me cry harder than you ever did because I was empty and desperate for a kind of family we never had.

In visions of hypothetical children, I always assumed I’d be raising them alone because you, “never really wanted them anyway.” Somehow, I’d have to explain why their father didn’t like them, why their aunt wasn’t around. Still, my beloved dreamscape family would celebrate every day together. Over here, across the field, it’s a hazy figment — not exactly right, but at the same time, isn’t it?

What can be stranger than mourning someone no longer with us is forgetting those who are. Suddenly, I’m getting a call about a woman who helped raise me, someone I haven’t seen in decades. Now she’s gone, and I feel guilty about not being there for her more often. When my kindness and ego zeroes out, sentimentality doesn’t seem right.

Your name is still in my phone, but I hope no one calls when you die.